With a big weekend series looming against No. 1 Florida, the No. 10 LSU baseball team took care of business against Northwestern State, winning 7-2.
The win extends the Tigers’ (37-16, 18-10 Southeastern Conference) win-streak to nine.
Even though the Tigers didn’t play their best game, LSU coach Paul Mainieri was still pleased with the outcome.
“We didn’t play awesome, awesome, awesome,” Mainieri said. “We left some runners on base. We did a few things not so great. Overall I thought it was a pretty good performance and not looking past this game.”
LSU used a three-run inning to pace the offense the rest of the game. Northwestern State (30-22) would draw closer, with a two-run third inning, to cut the score to 3-2.
The LSU bullpen combined to only give up two hits, one walk and five strikeouts against the Demons, after starting pitcher John Valek III was chased out of the game. Valek (6-2) only pitched three innings, giving up six hits and two earned runs.
“They all just did a tremendous job,” Mainieri said. “It allowed us to not use [Hunter] Newman, not to use [Parker] Bugg.”
A part of that group of pitchers was freshman Jake Latz, who has been battling injuries all season. He made his first game appearance since April 12.
Latz (0-1) only pitched one inning but was efficient, striking out one batter and retiring the other two. His short outing included a tough,10 pitch at-bat, but Latz said he wasn’t going to “give in”.
“We weren’t going to walk him, “ Latz said. “We were going to stick with the fastball and just get him out with that, and that’s what happened. I was just focused on throwing a strike.”
Mainieri said he plans to meet with pitching coach Alan Dunn, to see if he could be used this weekend in their series against the Gators.
Freshman right fielder Antoine Duplantis led the LSU offense, going 3-for-5 with a RBI triple in the bottom of the eighth. His triple was part of a three-run inning for the Tigers, which helped pad their lead.
The Tigers’ past struggles with midweek games was one of the reasons Duplantis said the team had success tonight.
“That was our focus coming in here,” Duplantis said. “We weren’t even thinking about Florida. We were just trying to make sure we beat this team. They’re a good team.”
With Northwestern behind them, the Tigers can look forward to the top-ranked Gators, who will visit The Box on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. to kick off a three-game series.
“It was a good performance by us,” Mainieri said. “I don’t think we took a step back at all. We did what had to do and now we can turn our attention to the Gators.”
